A printer is usually connected to a computing system either directly or over a communication network, such as a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN). Different kinds of printers are commercially available, such as inkjet printers and laser printers. Many commercially available printers, also referred to as multifunction devices, provide the functionalities of a scanner as well as that of a printer.
Typically, to print a document, a user selects a print command from an application program running on a host system, to initiate print services. The print services generate a user interface in the form of a print dialog box that allows the user to select various print options, such as source of media, number of copies of the document, page orientation, print quality, and pages per sheet of the media. After the user selects the print option and commences the print operation, a printer driver converts the document to a page description language (PDL) format that corresponds to the model of the printer selected by the user. The printer driver then transmits the PDL to the printer where it is rendered as a hardcopy.